How are HN users this stupid?
There is no “government” it’s companies - lobbying exists.
The cameras are for ads.
HN is complicit in this propaganda.
Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
131–140 of 554 posts
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#132It's pretty clear to be that governments shouldn't be able to 'subcontract' their way out of the limits placed on them via the constitution. Thankfully the supreme court seems to agree here in two ways: 1) Just because a third party (Google in Chatrie case but Flock here) collects the data and the government requests it from them, doesn't mean that that isn't a 'search' which requires a warrant ("obtaining someone's…
> users have a private relationship with Google where they elect to let Google track them and retain their information Elect to is a bit strong here. Acquiesce to , maybe, or perhaps suffer to .
You elect to buy an Android and not an Apple I suppose.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#133I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so f…
Those battles are only ever won over decades. The problem is that technology has vastly outpaced our ability to regulate and respond to it, and the system meant to provide checks and balances has been vastly corrupted.
Look at the recent Meta settlement. Society in general has known that Facebook and social media as imagined by the tech industry as an algorithmic targeting platform is largely harmful, but instead of holding them to account the US allowed them to settle with some small fines (18B is a lot, but only 10% of the gains they made from settling the case).
Now, Meta will make changes again, and then violate the rules and expectations while claiming cover from following the rules and it will take another decade of investigations, complaints and negotiation before there is an improvement.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK has been a surveillance state for decades. Heck you can’t even watch television without going on a register and inspectors coming to your door verifying your TV paperwork is in order. Imagine trying that in the US! This sort of thing is just starting more broadly in the US and Americans are not happy about it. It’s the new political hot potato where behind the scenes they’re pressured to support it but publicl…
I never thought of UK as a police state. How about Netherlands w a similar program? Non watchlist plates are kept for 28 days compared to most flock implementations that keep for 7 https://www.politie.nl/informatie/waar-staan-anpr-cameras.ht...
Uk has been widely know as a budding police state for years. V for Vendetta was written in the 80s partially as a commentary on the British states turn towards a police state.
This poster is from 2002:
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/po...
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been to many places in Italy that have scary much CCTV.
A bunch of CCTV is one thing. If the police have to come and knock on each business owner's door to ask "hey, you got some footage from 2 days ago, someone was shot in the area", that's fine with me. But what's not fine is that capability in a fully automated, fully remotely accessible way, because that openly invites abuse of all kinds.
Or put another way, actively tracking your every movement. Analyzing your behaviors to predict possible criminality.
What’s already happening is bad enough. What it enables to happen next is a nightmare.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#136I was surprised to learn that many countries have what amounts to a flock equivalent. UK for instance has a National ANPR Service w 12k fixed cameras and 90-100m plates read a day. They also store it much longer. Never understood why the outrage of flock in particular is so big online. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-anpr-ser...
> UK for instance It's one of the most dystopian western countries when it comes to that, not sure I'd use it as an example
How are you defining dystopian exactly? The climate is dystopian, all the rest follows naturally from that.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#137They want to make money. Their buyers want a closely surveilled world with no exits.
HN and YC are complicit by painting it as “the government” who literally bans the cameras when it’s only the investors who want them for ads.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
A reasonable regulation, focusing on personal freedom, would just forbid building such a network in the first place.
You just need to reasonably predict the future 20 years ago.
The EU heavily regulates this specifically in the, here infamous, "AI regulations" .
Though GDPR would also ban this probably.
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#139Tangential but why do articles about Flock never have (YC S17) in the title like articles about other YC companies?
Re: Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
#140I've been very pleased to see the reaction to Flock in the US. I was talking to a younger guy, very normal kid who keeps his nose clean, studying criminal justice in his junior year at college. I jokingly mentioned to him that maybe he could bring some anti-surveillance awareness to whatever law enforcement agency he goes to work for and he said, very seriously, "oh yeah, definitely. I've only gotten two cameras so f…
Well, good luck there and I mean that.
Where were those activists when it was already clear what these companies are doing, but before the famous ad? I am not trying to be nasty, if one wants to be outraged about something bad happening, its 24/7 job and then some more.
Whack-a-mole with problems is fine, but better to unplug the machine or something similarly drastic if you want to see some sort of permanent improvement and general direction change.
Behavior you describe is some sort of well meant extremism (isn't all of it well meant from certain perspective?). Not something you easily win masses with, just add polarization into society. Clear win would be flock simply going bankrupt since their revenue becomes close to 0 consistently.